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6.06.2014

Zoe: One Year Old

One year ago (tonight) we welcomed this wonderful girl into our lives. It was scary, bit it was also amazing.

She officially has quite the personality now, and I love seeing it develop more and more each month. She's really learning that she has an influence over the world, and that is wonderful to see.

One of the funniest things she does CONSTANTLY is the point and grunt: "What is that?" or "I want that." or "That looks very interesting." or "Why do you guys not know what I'm pointing at?" It's pretty humorous because she gets a very specific look on her face when she does it. I love watching her learn and express herself.

She absolutely loves making people laugh. I love that about her. She's learning more and more every day about what people think is funny and she will do it over and over and over again if it gets a giggle from you. And then she'll laugh all about it as well. Some favorites are peek-a-boo and flinging her hands over her face and then dragging them down her face. She's quite the little comic

Balls are her official favorite "real" toy. Though she will still desperately lung for keys, the phone or a wallet. But balls are plentiful in this house. And she loves to chase after them, carry them over to you or just repeat the word over and over again. And whenever we're out and about the second she sees one it's, "ball, ball, ball, ball, ball" and we have to look around for where it is. ANYTHING spherical is, "ball, ball, ball, ball." There's this one intersection (High and San Leandro for locals) and EVERY TIME we drive by she says, "ball, ball, ball, ball, ball," and for the life of us we cannot figure out what she sees that she thinks is a ball. She's an observant little bugger.

We aren't really baby proofing a lot an electing more to try and teach her what is an isn't appropriate to play with. We've tried to eliminate dangerous tools from the house and have baby proofed cabinets with bad things in them (under the sink and in the bathroom for instance), but other than that, she roams and learns. She's still fairly good at it and she definitely tries a couple times, but she's also very responsive to, "No, that's not for Zoe." I try not to say, "no, no, no, no" all the time because I fear she'll just get completely de-sensitized to the word. Instead I attempt to reason with her - which I realize may be bat shit crazy seeing as she's ONE, but it actually has worked out fairly well for us so far

Possibly one of the most adorable things she's picked up is saying the word, "Done" and putting her hands up in the air and having the sweetest look creep across her face when she says it. And she says it a lot: when she's done with her food, when she's not really done with her food, when she doesn't want to play with a toy anymore, when she drops something, when someone walks out of a room... - many things that someone is "done" with. Every time, those hands going in the air and that adorable look on her face, Chris and I just crack up. It's really quite cute. We've tried to get it on video a couple times because she normally has a silly look or is very serious, but it's a real innocent expression and there is something special about it. That cutie.

Another new skill? Throwing a ball, yay! She used to "try" and throw the ball by just holding it out in her extended arms and grunting and squeezing her face all tight. Then you'd grab it from her and she'd get so happy, ha! But yesterday Elizabeth and I had a pool date and she was crawling around playing with the balls I brought and she just chucked it. We both got so excited! Then Zoe had to clap at her awesomeness of course :) After that she did it over and over again. Yay Zoe! :)

She took 2 steps! Well, she took one step first and then fell. Chris said it didn't count "as her first steps" and I totally think it did. We have a debate going on as to whether it was a "controlled" step or not which I insist it was, and he says it wasn't. I find it all pretty humorous. But a day or two later she definitely took two steps on her own, yay! She hasn't tried much again since then (that was about 7-10 days ago) but she definitely is still standing up all the time and "crawling" now in the downward dog position - on hands and feet with her butt straight up in the air. It's quite a hilarious site to see.

All in all, she's one amazing lady. And I love seeing her grow into a little girl. Our little toddler now :)

In some ways this year has gone by so fast, and in some ways it has gone by so slow. It's weird how time works. I can't believe how quickly she's growing, but it also seems like forever ago that we were cheering her first rolling over. I can't wait to see what the next 12 months will bring - how different she will be, what same traits stick with her, how smart she'll be, how much fun stuff we can do with her...it's such a joy getting to watch them grow. And grow she has

The round up at 1 year (we self-measured and weighed, so I'm not sure how accurate those are):
22.6 pounds
31.5 inches
8 teeth
2 steps
8 words: momma, dadda, bye bye, baby, ball (always said about 9 times at once), done, again, ummmm (I say this one a lot and she has taken to saying it allllllllll the time)
Can throw a ball
Now taking just one nap in the middle of the day
Not nursing anymore (she stopped in the middle of 10 months, just decided she was done with it on her own).

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Hi! We're Chris and Meryl and we're renovating our Storybook home in Oakland, CA. Chris is the handy, knowledgeable builder and I'm his slightly inappropriate assistant. We've got 2 little girls who attempt to help as well - Zoe is 2 and Merritt arrived in June of 2015. Spurred by our love of renovating our own home we started a handyman, design and organizing business and now that we're both self employed we're busier than ever, but we love it!